{"id":213664,"date":"2024-05-03T11:42:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T15:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=213664"},"modified":"2025-02-20T13:53:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T18:53:57","slug":"physics-professor-nora-berrah-elected-to-national-academy-of-sciences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/05\/physics-professor-nora-berrah-elected-to-national-academy-of-sciences\/","title":{"rendered":"Physics Professor Nora Berrah Elected to National Academy of Sciences"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn physics professor Nora Berrah has been elected as a member of the\u00a0National Academy of Sciences<\/span><\/a> (NAS), becoming the seventh member from the UConn community to join the selective national society.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Society\u00a0was\u00a0<\/span>established in 1863\u00a0by an Act of Congress<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and signed into law by\u00a0former President Abraham Lincoln as\u00a0a private, nongovernmental institution.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Members are elected \u201cin recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research,\u201d and the academy serves as\u00a0an\u00a0advisory board for the nation on issues relating to science and technology.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a member of NAS, Berrah joins faculty and emeritus faculty members Kathy Segerson, professor of economics; \u00a0Dr. Cato Laurencin, Chief Executive Officer of The Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering at UConn Health; Laurinda Jaffe, department chair and professor of cell biology at UConn Health; Dr. Se-Jin Lee, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at UConn Health; Mary Jane Osborn, professor of microbiology who died in 2019; and Henry N. Andrews, professor of botany who died in 2002.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembership in the NAS is one of the highest honors that can be given to a scientist,\u201d says Ofer Harel, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. \u201cIt is a recognition by peers and the academy of outstanding research achievements, and Nora absolutely falls into that category.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Current academy members must nominate and vote for new members\u00a0to join the academy, with no more than\u00a0120 members\u00a0being elected each\u00a0year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s just an unbelievably great honor,\u201d\u00a0says\u00a0Berrah. \u201cI feel very grateful for all the National Academy members who voted for me and for being elected.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Berrah,\u00a0the\u00a0former\u00a0department head of physics from 2014 to 2018, was\u00a0elected in recognition of her\u00a0research that\u00a0focuses on\u00a0ultrafast\u00a0physical\u00a0and chemical\u00a0processes in quantum systems.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Berrah\u2019s research has wide ranging impact<\/h2>\n

In her lab on campus, as well as at the\u00a0<\/span>Linac Coherent Light Source Free Electron Laser<\/span><\/a> at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Stanford, California, Berrah conducts \u201ctime resolved, photo-induced experiments to understand ultrafast fundamental mechanisms such as charge transfer, energy transfer, and proton transfer.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The experiments measure super-fas<\/span>t reactions up to the femtosecond, or one quadrillionth of a second, as well as to the attosecond, or one quintillionth of a second which has important impacts on other scientific fields.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to understand these processes, and ultimately we want to control them to achieve desired outcomes,\u201d says Berrah. \u201cI and my research group measure manifestations of quantum mechanics — using ultrafast lasers at the femtosecond and attosecond timescale to test fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Our research has a broad impact on chemistry, biology, material science, and environmental science.\u201d <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Norah
Nora Berrah, professor of physics, in her lab at the Gant Complex on May 2, 2024. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Berrah\u00a0was also previously elected to<\/span> the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She earned a Davisson-Germer award from the American Physical Society and is a fellow of the American Physical Society.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>She\u00a0has also been an advocate for increasing\u00a0the participation and retention of women in\u00a0physics.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI realized\u00a0as an undergraduate student\u00a0that there were just very few women, whether they’re undergraduate or graduate\u00a0students,\u00a0and it doesn’t make sense to me, because we all have a brain, and if we have an interest\u00a0in physics, then we should\u00a0pursue\u00a0it,\u201d says Berrah.\u00a0\u201cIt’s a man-dominated field. And\u00a0way back, women were not\u00a0welcomed in\u00a0physics.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Over the course of her career, Berrah has worked to help women feel less isolated in the field, including serving as the chair of APS\u2019 Committee on the Status of Women in Physics.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Berrah is currently chairing a committee in the physics department to organize a conference for undergraduate women and gender minorities in physics<\/a>, that she says will occur January 24-26, 2025. She says\u00a0it is\u00a0an opportunity to help undergraduate women network\u00a0and\u00a0peer mentor\u00a0with each other,\u00a0so they don\u2019t feel\u00a0isolated, since they are often the only women in their classrooms. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The conference is a chance for women to learn together and become comfortable in the field, Berrah says. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s important to mentor the next generation of women\u00a0physicists\u00a0and increase significantly their number,\u201d\u00a0says\u00a0Berrah.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Berrah is the seventh member of the UConn community to be elected to the selective national organization that works to advise the nation on issues relating to science and technology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":213666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2275,2429,2226,2460,2235,2227,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2618],"class_list":["post-213664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-affairs","category-awards-scholarships","category-clas","category-faculty","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-edu-homepage","category-university-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 03:10:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213664"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225964,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213664\/revisions\/225964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/213666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213664"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=213664"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=213664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}